ALL THAT GLITTERS

“I know what,” said Margaret one Saturday morning when she and Jenny were out at the outdoor playhouse they had set up with orange crates behind the chicken house. “You gather up all the pieces of broken glass you can find while I’m gone to school and put them in this box.”

“What for?” asked Jenny.

“It’s a secret,” Margaret said mysteriously, “and I won’t tell you what it is “till you've got it all done.”

Jenny wondered what it could be. Margaret was always full of good ideas.

On Monday morning, as soon as Margaret left for school, Jenny went “treasure hunting” for broken glass. Several generations of careless people had apparently lived on the farm, as there were bits of broken glass of all colors to be found, if you looked carefully in the right places and did some digging. Some were partially buried in the ground and Jenny dug them out with sticks. Her fingernails became dirty and sometimes broken from trying to get the glass out of the hard dry ground. Jenny imagined that they might play jewelry store. What a fine display of jewelry the various bits of glass would make. Maybe they could be haughty, fat rich ladies, with lots of diamonds and rubies and pearls. Maybe they could play that it was Christmas time and the glass and shards of flowered dishes were hard Christmas candy. They could pretend they were sacking it up and giving it to poor children. It would make them so happy. Whatever it was they were going to do, Jenny imagined it would be something wonderful.

For several days Jenny fairly combed the farm for the pieces of glass, even though the weather was cold and windy. When Mother asked her what she was doing outside, Jenny smiled and said, “It’s a secret. A wonderful secret.” The sun shining on the glass made it easier to find and Jenny could sometimes spot a piece of broken glass glittering in the sunlight from quite a distance.

She was always happy to find a red piece, as this was the most rare. By Friday, Jenny had the box behind the chicken house heaped full of glass so that its sides were bulging. She could hardly wait for Margaret to get home that afternoon.

When Jenny could see Margaret walking down the road, she skipped to meet her and urged,”Come with me. I have something important to show you. “

“What?” asked Margaret, without much enthusiasm.

Jenny led her to the treasure box. “What are we going to do with it now?” she asked eagerly.

“Just let it sit there and next time Dad goes to the junk yard he can load it into the trailer and haul it off.”

“Why?” asked Jenny in disbelief.

“Cause it’s nothing but old junk. Besides, just think how much cleaner the yard is now. Safer too. We learned at school that it isn’t safe to have broken glass around, Now we won’t step on it next summer when we go barefoot, because you did such a good job of cleaning things up. You did a good thing.” Margaret kicked at the side of the box and several pieces of glass spilled on the ground.

“Yeah,” said Jenny. The glass was in the shade of the chicken house now and didn’t look pretty at all, as it had earlier in the day. It was nothing but dirty broken glass. Jenny gave the box a kick too.